


Lighter Fluid and Fury

by Anonymous



Category: Arrested Development, Political RPF - US 21st c.
Genre: Alternate Universe - No Physically Recoiling from the TV, Alternate Universe - Slightly Less Stupid, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-06
Updated: 2018-05-26
Packaged: 2019-03-01 06:55:45
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 2,555
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13289466
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/
Summary: Dispatches from the Bluth White House.Chapter 1: Lighter fluid and fury (Michael Wolff)Chapter 2: Do you have any money? (Government shutdown)Chapter 3: The bee tape (Gob has made a huge mistake)





	1. Chapter 1

And so, because he had nothing better to do, Gob wandered over to the West Wing.

"I thought I'd find you folding tablecloths or something," he said, perching on the edge of Michael's desk. Michael ignored him, still clack-clacking away on his computer. Well, Gob had a computer too, and his own office in its own building. "Does it still burn you that there's no lawyer job and that even if there were, you wouldn't qualify for it?"

"It's called the Office of the Attorney General, and--you know what, I'm not doing this right now, I've got too much on my plate. Speaking of plates, are you coming to the reception for the Latvian ambassador on Thursday or not?"

Gob shrugged. He didn't want to go to any of Lindsay's stupid parties, but he also liked to remind people he was in charge of the department with the twenty-eight million dollar budget. "Sure, but Tony and I are on an all-pineapple diet this week. No particular reason."

"Uh-huh. I'm sure the caterers are going to love that," muttered Michael, and made a note.

Gob kind of felt slightly bad for Michael, who had a dumb boring job, while Gob got to promote Red Bull to small children and show off how much energy you could save by riding a Segway everywhere. And Buster was in charge of the army or something and Annyong had defused the Korean nuclear crisis and Lindsay was the most powerful man in the world. It must suck to be baking cookies and decorating the White House. He didn't even feel up to insulting Michael and normally he loved insulting Michael. It was a strange and uncomfortable feeling.

"Hey," he said, "who's the guy I passed on the way in? Bald guy on the couch, currently talking to some dumb staffer in tears."

"Hmm? Oh, that's Michael Wolff. He's a fashion journalist writing a book on Lindsay's unique style."

He was not, and not in the sense that Michael and the rest of the Bluth administration had assumed. A quick Something search would have clarified this, but Tobias had put himself in charge of the vetting because he had a medical degree, and had cleared Wolff on his strong improvisational skills. But that's a story for another time.


	2. Do you have any money?

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The government shutdown: Bluth edition.

With a possible government shutdown twenty-six hours away, and a Republican Congress determined to be as cruel as legally possible, the Democrats left Capitol Hill and went to the Model White House in search of the president.

She wasn't there. Michael Bluth, spokesperson and chief of staff and First Gentleman after Tobias failed the security clearance, ran his fingers through his hair and said, exasperated, "The president is kind of busy figuring out how to prevent a shutdown right now. She and one of the senior members of the Senate are conducting secret negotiations in an undisclosed location to that effect." He sighed. "Look, I can pencil you in for noon tomorrow."

"You mean twelve hours before the government shuts down?"

Michael heaved a sigh. "Well, you've had a month to work out a solution," he said, tapping at his iPad. "I mean, technically I know it's not your fault, and believe me, I know what it's like to be the only adult in the room." He sighed. "I wonder if I still have that job offer in Phoenix after what Lindsay said about John McCain. And Jeff Flake. Do you think I still have that job offer?"

So Charles Schumer and Nancy Pelosi left the Model White House, and tracked the negotiators via Lindsay's Instagram to the Perfect Unions, where the president was doing shots and taking selfies.

"Chuck!" Lindsay shouted over the music. "Nancy!" She exchanged air kisses with them both. "Isn't this place great?"

"Eh," said Chuck.

"It certainly looks like you two are having fun," said Nancy.

They were from New York and San Francisco, respectively, and therefore understandably underwhelmed by Washington D.C.'s fourth best gay bar.

"I know, I know," said Lindsay, "it's only the third best gay bar in the city--"

It was actually the fourth. The third best was its sister bar across the street, More Perfect Unions, but as that was a lesbian bar Lindsey had "forgotten" to tell Lindsay about it.

"Aw, shucks," said Lindsey Graham, hastily putting down his glass of bourbon, "this is a gay bar?"

Everyone ignored him.

"--but if I go to the Hole in the Wall, I risk running into Mike Pence and my husband, who go there for the tapas, and apparently I'm not welcome at the Mission Creep. I mean, make one joke about female body inspectors, and suddenly you're persona non grata in the intelligence community."

Fun fact: Mission Creep had started out neither as a gay bar nor as the Mission Creep, but after a few decades as J. Edgar Hoover's favorite after-hours hangout it had become both. Also, only members of the LGBTI community were allowed to call it Mission Creep. Lindsay was not a member of the LGBTI community, no matter how many Shemalé t-shirts she wore.

"And you fired James Comey," said Nancy. 

Lindsay sighed. "He was asking for it. He was going to charge me with lying to the FBI, but it was his fault for asking my age. I mean, who does that? I'd still climb him like the border wall. Speaking of which--I have had the best idea. We build the wall south of the border. That way Mexico has to pay for it!"

It was not the best idea. Mexico was not going to pay for the wall.

"I really don't think they're going to pay for any wall."

"Well, actually, Chuck," said Lindsay, sweeping her hair to one side and pouting for her camera, "I was on the phone with Vicente Fox the other day and he said they'd reconsider paying for it on the cinquo de nunca. So what do you say to that?"

Mexico was never paying for that [bleep]ing wall.

Nancy Pelosi, who understood basic Spanish and also that Republicans were generally hateful idiots who wouldn't bother reading a bill if they were assured it would screw over poor people and play well on Fox News, whispered something in Chuck's ear, and then said, "How about we give you a few billion for your south of the border wall, and you sign our bill to protect Dreamers and keep the government open?"

"Can we start construction south of California?" asked Lindsay. "On a certain piece of land. For no particular reason."

"Sure," said Nancy. "Or, at least, we can start the legal research and filings."

"Great," said Lindsay. "I have the best [bleep]ing attorneys." She had the worst [bleep]ing attorneys. "Let's do some shots to celebrate!"

It wasn't that Chuck and Nancy weren't actually enthusiastic about the bargain they'd just struck. But it was 2018, so everyone with any sensibility needed a drink.

And thus was born the Welcome All Learners and Laborers Act of 2018, which provided a path to citizenship for millions of undocumented immigrants. As Nancy Pelosi had intuited, only three Republican senators actually read it, but for some strange reason conservatives never actually listened to Tim Scott or Susan Collins, and for the reason that no one wanted to spend any time around Ted Cruz, no one listened to him either.

As to the wall itself, the land owned by the Bluth Corporation was a protected environment for the maca root, so building permits were denied, but it was bought and maintained as a bee sanctuary. Besides, Lindsay's ability to secure the deal had her approval rating skyrocketing to fifty-four percent, and she was on a lot of very flattering magazine covers, and her parents were thrilled to have sold the land at such a good profit, so her father was very proud of her, which was, at the end of the day, all she really wanted.

"This was great, you guys," yelled Lindsay at two in the morning, over a bunch of scribbled cocktail napkins and the last of the vodka. "We should really do this more often! Hey, do you think Lil Kim would go clubbing with me? Like, Gangnam Style and all that?"

Nancy Pelosi raised an eyebrow. "That's something you should take up with the state department," she said.

Which Lindsay did. But that's a story for another time.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Also, we all know how Tobias pronounces tapas.


	3. The Bee Tape

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "They claim have a video recording that is sexual and explicit in nature," continued John Beard.
> 
> "Yeah," said Gob. "That's probably me."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Written before S5, extra AU.

Gob had gone to visit his mother to ask her for money and was suffering through the yacht club club salad when he heard John Beard saying something about Congress starting an investigation into rumors that Russians had compromising material on Lindsay Bluth-Funke's brother.

"Oh?" asked his mother. "What sort of kompromat do the russkies have on you, Gob?"

Gob didn't remember doing anything illegal, because of course he didn't. "And I resent the assumption that I'm the brother they mean. Buster pretty much killed Lucille Two, and who knows how Michael got all that cash to build Sudden Valley?" He didn't know. He'd like to know. If there were people out there who were just handing out cash for you to build things, he was in the wrong business, because he'd hired those Mongolians to build the wall but no one had handed out cash to him. Not even his dad, but then again, no one had heard from his dad in a long, long time. 

"They claim to have a video recording that is sexual and explicit in nature," continued John Beard.

"Yeah," said Gob. "That's probably me."

"Is it anything I should be concerned about?" asked Lucille.

The thing was, as much as Gob didn't like his mother and knew she'd never support him, he didn't really think she was ready to hear what he and Tony Wonder had done that night. And twice again the day after. And on a sort of kind of regular but still keeping it casual because if they were dating it would totally be gay but they weren't so it wasn't basis after that. "Hey, don't you think it's weird John Beard is on the news? I thought he quit the news but now he's on the news and isn't that weird?"

Lucille waved a hand dismissively. "That's not news, that's _Fox_. I want to know what they have on you, Gob. Your sister has worked very hard on this and you shouldn't mess it up for her."

"Worked hard?" said Gob, "or hardly worked?" And either way, he didn't see why he shouldn't mess it up for Lindsay.

"Tell me or you're not getting any money."

Gob almost choked on a crouton. "This is child abuse!"

"If you're old enough to be caught on a camera doing vulgar acts, you hardly qualify as a child," she said. "Well, usually. This isn't To Entrap a Local Predator: Orange County Edition."

"It wasn't vulgar," he protested, loud enough to drown out John Beard. "I just had sex with Tony Wonder while wearing a Tony Wonder face mask. I don't see what's so wrong about some good old-fashioned straight bait sexual intercourse!"

In the ringing silence that followed, a waiter brought his mother a fresh martini and checked Gob out. It'd be flattering if he weren't in a committed relationship. Not that he was in a committed relationship. Especially with a man. Whom he'd just told his mother about.

Lucille raised an eyebrow and sipped coolly at her drink. "I'd ask if that was all, but I really don't want any more details."

"Well, too bad, because I have nothing to be ashamed of when it comes to my sex life." He did, but thanks to liberal use of Forget-Me-Nows he couldn't remember it. However, whether because he'd run out of Forget-Me-Nows and his usual supply had dried up due to his sister's strident anti-immigrant rhetoric, or because he didn't want to forget, he hadn't used them after his encounters with Tony Wonder, and those generally weren't anything to be ashamed of. Except for the part with the face masks, which is just weird.

"I thought they'd found the footage of you killing that rabbit in front of Buster's kindergarten class and then asking a bunch of screaming and crying children to clap."

"Buster did."

Gob was surprised at how well his mother, who had railed against the homosexuals her entire life, was taking this. Then again, it had been a surprising year. A worrying year. A difficult year.

For instance, Gob had recently gone with Tony to a Eurovision party and had to confront the uncomfortable truth that maybe he didn't know how chickens danced. Maybe he'd never really known how chickens danced.

"What I want to know," said Lucille, "is how those filthy Russians got their hands on that recording. Either Lucille Austero or Sally Sitwell must have hacked into our network before George Michael could install that privacy software and stole it." She put down the drink long enough to steeple her fingers. "We should sue."

"Right," said Gob. He'd also recently discovered that what he'd thought was Bee Contact, a social networking site for amateur apiary enthusiasts, was in reality VKontakt, the Russian version of a popular American website where Gob's personal data would have been just as accessible to various advertisers and the FSB. Chad Ohioson had posted on his first month anniversary video to ask if he was the brother of Lindsay Bluth-Fünke, congressional candidate. Gob had replied that no, Lindsay Bluth-Fünke was the sister of the world-famous magician Gob Bluth, and Chad had asked if Gob knew anything awful and embarrassing about Lindsay, and Gob had asked what, apart from her ex-husband, and then Tony had looked over Gob's shoulder and asked if he was flirting with someone online and Gob had gone, why, are you jealous, and Tony had been like, no, that's perfectly cool, and Gob had been like, because I wouldn't be jealous if you were flirting with someone online, and Tony had been like, well, that's cool too, I was just wondering if you were up and that was when the literal masks had gone on and they'd done it and Gob had forgotten all about Chad Ohionson until now and he hadn't even taken a pill. "It's definitely Sally Sitwell. We should totally sue."

"Oh, we will," said Lucille. "Trying to blackmail Lindsay and hacking into the computer of my third-least favorite child? They'll pay for this."

"I'm your third-least favorite child?" Gob had never been her third-least favorite child before. He had tears in his eyes, and not just because he'd nearly choked on another crouton.

"Of course you are," said Lucille. "Michael and Buster know what they did."

"I'm your third-least favorite child!" Gob jumped up from his seat and hugged--actually hugged!--her.

"Yes," Lucille said, patting him awkwardly on his back as she tried to sip her drink over his shoulder. "And no one invades your privacy but me. But if we're going to fight this thing, you'd better bring your young man to meet the family."

Gob froze. A cold trickle of fear ran down his neck. (Actually, it was vodka and vermouth slopping over the side of his mother's glass. But that's close enough.) The more things changed, the more he'd made a huge mistake.


End file.
